Frugally Forward To Autumn

[Wolfcub]

New fred

Totally get this dh scenario @Socathe ! I think you've come to a good compromise situation there

NSD today

But last night we had to buy headphones as I need them to play guitar quietly and not disturb the neighbours! £10

Going for a walk on the beach before the rain comes in.

Sainsburys weekly shop to collect tomorrow £59

I'm on the lookout for pumpkin coloured nail polish but could use my Boots points if I'm lucky. I have £6 to spend!

£25 famers market - cakes, savoury lunch spicy things and some big fat sausages. Also enquired about getting ds's 16th cake made as a) I have no time and b) I can't actually cook a cake in my oven at the moment. Will probably put in the order tomorrow. I hate spending money for stuff I can do myself but this is a needs must situation. Also managed to get a couple of small bits of birthday presents for him this week. I'm normally done with shopping for birthday and Xmas for everyone by now so need to get my backside in gear as the nieces are the only ones sorted for both.

Washing on the line. Think this is set to be the last semi-dry day for a while.

Morning all.

wolf hope your ds is feeling better today, farmers market sounds lovely.

We are having a lazy morning here then off to a nature reserve this afternoon. Doing the first of many uniform washes today before the rain comes.

Treating ourselves to a Chinese tonight we haven't had one since the start of the summer. We used to have a takeaway every Saturday 😱 and have got that down to generally once a school holiday. We are friends with the owners so often get the bill rounded down or something extra for free 😁

collie weekly shop for £59 sounds amazing, we are currently on around £200. 😱 Although there's 6 of us and I have to cook 2or 3 meals a night.What's on your meal plan?

Happy Saturday all

Mmm, farmers' market. We have one here, which I rarely attend, but always come away with something nice. Last time it was endives and empanados.

£7 on coffee in Sainsburys yesterday. Leaves £9 in the £80 I have transferred for the week, which I will probably spend on an FT and ingredients for the carrot cake DH wants to make this weekend. He gets urges to cook from time to time.

£21 on tea, wine and cake in the Tate Modern yesterday. Treated DH because he had bought us a nice lunch in the Rick Stein restaurant at Barnes on Thursday - I had set menu, because a) it's lovely, and b) I am trying to be a cheap-ish date, and the bill came to £124. £27 on travel out and about in London this week, for me. I will be going nowhere except by foot or car for the next few weeks.

£170 tomorrow for annual gas safety check and boiler service. DS' quarterly rent bill due next week, £1356. These bills make trying to save pennies here and there seem pointless, but KOKO.

Back to more walking and home workouts this weekend, it's been a lovely, indulgent week. Even Ddog is looking fatter!

socathe that sounds really frustrating with your DH. It is really hard when you’re on a different page. I’m sure DP would think I’m extravagant but I think he’s completely unaware of how much things cost. Also, I earn more of the money and am in charge of it. But if he was a spender I would find that really hard. Hope preschool goes well.
warty (ginger?) the chilli sounds lovely, I wish some of my DC would eat that! The DSs (teens) are mainly into beige food though they are beginning to cook for themselves.
big glad you’ve had a lovely week
snd wolf glad you are treating yourself
flowery we’ve been watching marriage too. Does anyone remember Sean Bean as a young man in the film When Saturday Comes? OMG I was weak at the knees.

in frugal news I’m looking into cancelling my gym membership -£18 a month. Its at the Uni where I work and i thought carefully about it but did that typical thing of only using a few times. Shamefully I haven’t been for months as my main thing is running and I much prefer running outside. However with winter coming…Also, I had all good intentions to take better breaks from work (something I struggle with as my hours are crazy) and fit in exercise, but that hasn’t happened.

alfie I also meant to say I hope your DD is still well away from the nasty ex. Sorry not to acknowledge everyone’s posts, it’s hard when the thread moves so fast!

I dug out my library card and headed to the library so I could get some nice, comforting, escapist books at no cost. Only to find it's closed today. Grrr..... It's usually open on Saturday mornings. Never mind, I'll try and pop in some evening this week.

I think I need to cut back on social media use and news sites. I'm finding all the news stories about the energy crisis and cost of living crisis and higher bills etc. a bit anxiety inducing. Which is why I'm turning to books for a bit of escapism. You need to be aware of what's happening and what's coming down the track. But you can be too aware iykwim.

A bit dreary here today - grey skies and rain.

Right, I'd better hit the road.

Hey decaff - its quite vague so we can mix and match whatever we fancy but
1)Veggie bean burgers & homemade wedges
2)Veggie mince pasta bake / or spag bol
3)Quiche and salad with homemade potato salad
4)Chickpea and spinach curry with naan
5) Jacket potatoes with tuna or leftovers
6) Homemade pepperoni pizza
7) We have toasties and hash brown nights to use up any leftover ham / cheese etc and serve with salad

I buy carrots, peppers, tomatos, brocoli and lots of leaves each week. But also have peas, sweetcorn and broadbeans in the freezer as DS loves them!

We aren't Veggie but don't eat much meat as it upsets my stomach! But we add chorizo to things with Veggie mince to make it scrumpy. I have spices at home so if we don't fancy pasta we can have Veggie Chilli instead.

My £59 includes treats and lunches
Wraps, houmous, cheese, ham etc
Crisps (and share bag crisps for weekend treat)
Soreen
Orange
Apple
Smoothies
Homemade flapjacks

I buy eggs for omelettes and baking. I also stocked up on cookies and hobnobs 🤣 and included nice cheese crackers and posh chutney for the Christmas cupboard.

Well today's NSD ended up being a little pricey. Needed a new duvet cover and spent £12 in Asda on one.

Scrummy not scrumpy haha!!

Today is the first dreary cold and damp day we've had. It's a shock and knowing we need to keep the heating off / low but the house dry and cosy is very depressing! Dehumidifier in the bedroom says 77% 😢

DH says we'll get used to it. We have just put the Winter rugs down in each room as our floorboards have a huge gap underneath it can get very drafty. So we have "Winter rugs" to help keep rooms warmer.

Feeling a little low and bleak. The natural post Summer slump.

We are virtually veggie here too collie, I occasionally will have a tin of tuna. I've had to buy meat today as we've family here tomorrow and I honestly, it's so expensive compared with not eating it. Lovely menu plan, very frugal and healthy too.

Agree tayto. It's a low level anxiety there all the time isn't it listening to all the news. Well done to your DD!

DH used to love Sean Bean in Sharpe! I loved Marriage.

Can you pause the membership martha?

Enjoy the takeout decaf

I think a fix might not be a bad idea at all socathe, given the Russian oil situation is getting no better.

born. I absolutely love my air fryer, it's a recent purchase. I haven't used the oven in weeks. We got a very large InstantPot one, as we are four adult. It's quite large, probably not as large as a microwave (which we don't have), but certainly sizeable. We've a large kitchen though, which isn't a brag, more a note of caution if you don't.

Spends

£80 in Sainsburys, ffs. Included wine, meat, wine glasses (literally got none) and socks for DH but that's still...having folk over is expensive.

But in a frugal win I complained about some marks on some new furniture we'd had delivered and they offered me money off or replacements, managed to get £375 in total returned to me (a bar stool, two dining chairs, small marks in truth). Woo hoo! Amazed they offered me this but, with the tax rebate for DH is super welcome.

Glad to hear the boots I bought from Vinted are warm and frugal time

I made a really cheeky offer on some new Hush boots too of a tenner, which astonishingly got accepted. I guess if you don't ask you don't get, but I'm amazed!

Ps Dhal for tea. Leftovers from last night, bought a few Indian starters and will make flatbreads. Cheaper than a takeout but probably could have made the bhajis too.

Socathe I think if you can get a fix that isn't too high, then do it. Our energy company Pure Planet went bust in October. We were moved to Shell and they don't offer fixes. Whether we can move to a different supplier right now, don't know? Sure your DH means well but yes I'd be the same, hopefully the compromise works.

Martha same for me with the leisure club. Barely used it for months, as I prefer to run outdoors too, but it's a real sanctuary over the winter. I get a corporate discount and I can pay DD in for a swim for £5. Not cheap though at £47 pm. Will see how much we use it. Its on my list of luxuries to cut if needed. I've even worked out which order they can go in.
'
Tayto I'm likely going to avoid the news and SM this weekend too. Its all paralysed until announcements next week. I'm working through books I got for my 50th, onto an Icelandic political thriller now. Think it was published in 2008 so I can drift back in time.

Farmers Market sounds amazing Wolf.

Likely missed loads off sorry, headed to do shopping for DD starting secondary next week - last few things. Jam jars are not the right size so they need to be returned, will have a peek in Lakeland while I am here.

Oh yes meant to say I am totally feeling the post summer slump Collie. Love some parts of autumn but I am a warm weather person. And getting back into routine of early mornings I struggle a little 😴

Right, dog walked, my step count looking respectable, FT and cake ingredients bought. £13 - sultanas alone were £1.80, and I rarely use them. I have a load of washing to put on, then I'm doing myself some baked beans on toast for lunch and parking up for a read of the newspaper. Fancy baked potatoes/gratin potatoes tonight, since the oven is going to be on for a cake. Carb-tastic!

DH has just informed me that the bathroom window sash has gone. I am determined that we will fix this ourselves using our trusty Readers Digest DIY manual. But not today...

Enjoy the rest of the weekend, everyone.

Thanks for your replies about CBeebies land. As it happens we need a bulk bag of top soil delivered next week and the only day DH can be at home for it is his day with ds so that has put the CBeebies plan on the back burner. We will go one day, I don't mind him taking him it's just bad timing with holiday spending coming up and also it would be a nice thing to do as a family anyway.

Spendy day, £65 winter clothes for ds. Needed all new long sleeves tops as he's outgrown last winter's, just one pair of jeans as hoping the rest of his trousers will still fit. Got a pair of waterproof trainers in the sale in the next size up for £4 so frugal win. All just from Tesco. £27 on two birthday presents, £20 was the budget so went a bit over. £93 on topsoil for our front garden which is the current renovation project, shouldn't need to spend more than that on it though and we got free grass seed worth about £100 from my friend's husband who's a gardener so frugal win!

Hope that's it for DS' winter clothes as his coats etc hopefully still fit and DM has offered to buy him some boots. Maybe just some wellies needed.

Sold some shoes that DS had grown out of and made £5. Ideal!

Big well done tayto DD 👍

We’ve had a fairly quiet day. Used our NT membership to park and go for a walk.

Neither DH or I are sleeping well at the moment- we’ve got the back to work unsettledness I think. I had a nap this afternoon as was so tired.

I think it’s been a NSD. We have just enough milk left for breakfast tomorrow before food shopping. We made a conscious decision not to shop sooner to use stuff up. DH didn’t get quite enough meat out to defrost for our curry so I chucked the last of some wrinkling tomatoes in to bulk it out.

Washing is out in the line, weather is due to turn tomorrow. Annoyingly it’s going to be back to hanging washing up inside this week.

Spent £15 on croissants, milk, oat milks x 2, a Saturday newspaper and a magazine for DD. Not bad as a total spend for a Saturday and the paper will last all weekend.
We've got a bit of the post- Summer slump here too but hoping to rectify it with rhubarb crumble later.

£1.00 spent on crisps in coffee shop. DH spent £46 on plants and £5-ish on coffees.

Groceries yesterday, £130, stock up on lots of things.

Meal plan.

Tomorrow is lamb tagine and veggie option. Cheesecake. Family round.

Potential leftovers from Sunday.

Pea, paneer, and spinach rice
Chickpea, orzo tomato stew with feta
Veggie and bean casserole
Veggie sausage and mash, carrots and sweetcorn
Veggie lasagna, salad
Roast Veggie pasta.
Butternut squash dhal.
Big veg broth, crusty bread.

Mmmm need sounds delicious.

I just randomly made Nepali spinach stir fry. Which used up some stuff in the fridge.

I feel really sad today and I swear it's the weather. It rained ALL day. I felt so useless and bored so I ended up making a gluten free vegan chocolate cake. Which used up the GF flour and custard that had been in the cupboard for so long it was nearing it's BBE!

Before anyone says custard isn't vegan, don't worry we aren't vegan. But we didn't have eggs - so the cake ended up being vegan by accident! 😁

Wow I’m impressed, everyone’s meal plans have a lot more veggies in than mine. I struggle with that with the teen DSs particularly. Though I made loaded fries with chicken and peppers today (bbc good food) and persuaded DS2 to eat sweet potato fries instead of normal.
spent 71 at Aldi (ouch)
6 at Lidl for bits Aldi didn’t have (odd gaps on the shelves)
£11 on yellow sticker at Asda - this was after a walk with my friend at a local park, should have resisted as over budget but bagged a couple of meals for the freezer.
now feeling stuffed!